Last Friday, I experienced my first emotional breakdown in ages when I was caught in a traffic jam heading towards the KL Convention Centre for Babyface‘s concert. After sitting in the car for 2 1/2 hours in KL’s rush hour traffic, the air conditioner in my car suddenly stopped working. Things went downhill from there. Unable to wind down my window in the Smart Tunnel, I persevered in the heat, sweat dripping down my back, and my body feverish from a bout of flu. Within minutes, a loud clanging sound emanated from the engine. I panicked. Don’t die on me now, don’t die on me, I prayed. In my stationery position, I glanced at my side view mirror, and *gasp*, I could see smoke billowing up from the undercarriage, diffusing the light from the car behind me. OMG, the car’s going to explode, my eyes widened with apprehension. I had obviously been watching too many car chase scenes on TV which end in a fiery blast. I called Bald Eagle on the mobile phone, sobbing and saying my goodbyes.

As I approached the open air carpark where a long queue had already formed, my car rattling louder than a construction site, I gestured to the driver in front of me to let me through first. I circled my arms in a big O with a whoosh at the end, my eyes showing the terror that I felt, as I acted out an exploding car scene (mushroom…kabooom!) to the driver so that he would take pity on me. The fella was obviously lacking in compassion or imagination (c’mon dude…it’s a universal exploding car gesture!) and ignored me. Bugger. To cut a long story short, I made it to the carpark in one piece with no explosion in sight. Babyface should realise that I almost gave up my life for him.

The concert helped calm my nerves; I’m a sucker for soppy love songs from the 80s, so when Babyface sang Gone Too Soon as a tribute to Michael Jackson (many years back, a tribute by Michael Jackson to Diana, Princess of Wales), I let go of my angst, wept a bit and generously allowed Bald Eagle to hold my hand. The similarities were startling. If my car had exploded that night, Gone Too Soon would have been Bald Eagle’s tribute to me. Like a comet blazing across the evening sky, gone too soon…..

Hehe.

There’s a reason why I’m an accountant and my brothers are engineers; upon inspecting the next day, my brother pointed out to me that the compressor for my air conditioner had konked out (ta-da…the source of the loud engine sound), and it would cost me RM1,500 to replace it. Like Bald Eagle, he laughed at my exploding car theory. (My brother has no imagination either.)

I’m poorer by RM1,500, but I’m alive. Everytime I close my eyes, I thank the Lord that I’ve got you, and you’ve got me too…..

**********

Golden Sauce Noodles

This post is about love. My love for 80s love songs, my love for Bald Eagle and my love for noodles.

Originally supposed to be called Canoodling (or at least, that’s what the sign on the scaffolding indicated before it was removed), It’s A Noodle Bar finally opened its doors after overcoming its teething problems. The decor is very much industrial with a hint of quirkiness in the form of suspended table lamps from the ceiling. The menu is extensive enough with its main servings consisting of a variety of Asian style noodles. From familiar dishes like assam laksa and pan mee, to foreign sounding names like golden sauce noodles and Indonesian baba noodles, the only type of noodles missing would probably be Western pastas.

Raw Salmon with Relish

Fried Eggplant with Chicken Floss

The Raw Salmon served with diced onions, cucumber, pomegranate and pineapple relish and basil leaf was an interesting concoction but lacked a slight saltiness that would have made it more enjoyable. I’ve always liked deep fried eggplant with spicy chicken floss (the first time I tried this was at Robson Heights Seafood Restaurant in Seputeh and I was bowled over by this dish); the version served here was less crisp but still tasty. At RM5, I thought it was very reasonably priced.

Indonesian Baba Noodles

Fish Fillet Vermicelli

The Golden Sauce Noodles came in a bowl of yellow, mildly sour and very milky curry (thanks to a generous helping of coconut cream) which was further thickened with shredded kembong fish, and garnished with pineapple, cucumber and keropok. I preferred this over the Indonesian Baba Noodles, which came in a spicier gravy together with chicken, potatoes and eggplant. The flavour of the curry lacked depth and didn’t seem to be dominated by any particular ingredient (eg. chicken or fish or prawn). My favourite for the evening was undoubtedly the Fish Fillet Vermicelli, which was served with snapper fish slices in a murky white broth of soybean soup. Quite unusual but it was a combination that worked well.

Tong Sui

Several types of tong sui are available to sweeten the palate and mitigate the spiciness of the meal. We went with the snow fungus, gingko and egg tong sui which was pretty good. The tong sui here are priced between RM4 and RM5.50, quite affordable for shopping mall prices.

A good variety of salads are also available for those who do not want to consume too many carbs. If they are anything like Delicious‘ salads, I reckon I’ll be a fan soon. (Note: It’s a Noodle Bar and it’s neighbour, For Goodness Sake are part of the Ms Read group)

i managed to catch (very, verrry brief) snippets of the show on ntv7’s pagi show while flipping channels for the oscars! he still looks and sounds pretty good for a 50-something-year-old 😀
crossing fingers that pad thai and pho will eventually make an appearance at noodle bar!!!

oh poor thing! i spoke to you on the phone but had no idea you were stuck in the jam for 2.5 hours!! poor poor LL. the good thing though is that through all that suffering 1. you managed to catch babyface 2. pain causes you to write such an inspired post !

Fish Fillet Vermicelli shots is the one i like best! the angle and the peek-a-boo noodles and fish.. it’s really balanced ! i too love noodles.. and i love AWOL! hehe 😉

wishing u a great week.. no more hole in the pocket situations unless its for good food or great clothes.. haha

I wonder whether that will work as a pickup line… “hey baby… I wanna make you… *arms in a big O with a whoosh at the end*”

Sad sad tale… as I read it I was so afraid that you wouldn’t make it to the concert! Glad you made it and you are safe.

… but hey, I think we all have learnt something from you… nope… it ain’t that we should leave ample time for traffic jams and emergencies… nope, it ain’t that we should be servicing our cars regularly… we learnt the universal exploding gesture!!

Come on peeps… do it wit me ya’ll… *arms in a big O with a whoosh at the end* … and say KABOOOOOM!!! One more time… yeahhhhh you got it… double time…. yeahhhhhhhhhh

A Lil Fat Monkey: Well, there are different degrees of bad, but the key is to be positive and always see the silver lining. Sending good vibes your way too, sweetie.

Chaokar: Ya lor, it’s an old car, just like the owner. 😛

Sean: I noticed that they don’t have any fried noodle dishes, hor. So no hokkien mee or char koay teow. Everything is dry style or with gravy. Btw, wasn’t an AP reporter there at the concert? The newspaper report the next day carried an AP credit.

thenomadGourmand: You had a bad day with your car fan problem too, so here are some hugs for you. Bar with cigars….hehe…who knows, eh?

J: Anytime, babe.

unkaleong: Next time I have car trouble, will call ya. Does the service come with you too? lol.

neko-hime: Glad you asked about the ice blended. Totally forgot to describe it! The fruity one was thick with a lot of pulp, so at first, it tastes great, but towards the end, it’s overly pulpy. The green tea ice blended was too mild – could hardly taste the green tea.

cumidanciki: Yar, too much to tell you over the phone, especially when there are other things to talk about. 😀 Yar, now I know why artists and creative people do much better when they are afflicted with issues! Yar, gotta eat cheap from now on to make up for loss of earnings. 😛

Frat Mustard: Please practice hard. I wanna see you do the universal exploding car gesture when I see you next. Perhaps if enough people do it, the dude in the blue car will recognise it the next time he sees a damsel in distress. You are so funny la, Frat. 😛 No wonder FBB lurves you.

I always enjoy your posts. You take the best food photos I have ever seen!
BTW, how was the service at this Noodles place? My experience with service in that group of eating places (esp. Delicious) is just plain bad. Your meal is spoilt because you spend the whole time chasing wait staff for your orders. They have no system — or if there is one, it’s not designed to be efficient. I walked out the other day from Delicious in BV II after waiting 10 minutes for someone to take my order, and it wasn’t even full rush-hour yet. It was a blurry parade of waiter, waitress, captain, guy who seated me, etc, etc, etc … Some of them even looked at me holding the menu (hint: customer has not ordered yet) but nothing registered on the brain I guess.
Look forward to more of your posts. And I’m glad you and your car and your air-con made it!

Monica, thanks for leaving a comment. And thanks for the compliment. I thought service was pretty good at the Noodles Bar. Service is similarly good at For Goodness Sake (next door). In fact, I was quite astonished to see so many uniformed staff hovering around, although this can be rather annoying too coz one would prefer a little bit more privacy. Both these restaurants are small and all customers are seated within a certain radius, so it’s harder for customers to go unnoticed. Delicious is a lot busier, but having said that, customer service is important and waitstaff need to recognise signals/signs which indicate a customer’s needs. I hope Delicious will take note of your problem, though. Cheers.

coincidently… Sean also posted about It’s A Noodle Bar today
might check it out soon to see if I could satisfy my noodle cravings here… as it’s an air-conditioned place which is suitable for my feisty princess

Hiya May! Yeah, my car is fine for the moment with brand new parts. I wish that we could replace our body parts as easily whenever they wear off. Yes, I like restaurants that take pride in their appearance.

Loved this one not just for the oodles of noodles but for the drama that accompanied it. Glad you are well. Dunno what’s with that dude who completely ignored the universal sign for exploding car…LOL! And as for engineers…there MUST be a good reason for their existence. Hahaha!

I know i’m a bit late with this – but wowww… so much drama there! Glad u r OK and that yr car also recovered. That universal explosion sign thingy – can do the O with the arms, but but the swoosh – how lah? Swoosh left or right?? 😛

Pureglutton….ya lor…I’m such a drama queen. 😛 The swoosh will depend if you’re right brained or left brained. The right brained one will include a wave at the end as well to the tune of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance.

I like the quotes. It’s interesting how one can find comfort in other people’s experiences…good or bad. Yeah, BE has his hands full with me. 😛 You’re right…this is the place we were peering into that day. The place smells new, not the same as PappaRich. Anyhow, it’s different anyway. PappaRich has the smell of coffee and toast. This place smells of curry and stock. hehe.